St. Louis Cardinals Top 34 Prospects
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the St. Louis Cardinals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Rk | Name | Age | Highest Level | Position | ETA | FV |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jordan Walker | 20.1 | AA | 3B | 2024 | 60 |
2 | Iván Herrera | 22.1 | MLB | C | 2023 | 50 |
3 | Nolan Gorman | 22.1 | MLB | 3B | 2022 | 50 |
4 | Matthew Liberatore | 22.7 | MLB | SP | 2022 | 50 |
5 | Masyn Winn | 20.3 | AA | SS | 2025 | 50 |
6 | Gordon Graceffo | 22.3 | AA | SP | 2023 | 50 |
7 | Brendan Donovan | 25.5 | MLB | 2B | 2022 | 45 |
8 | Tink Hence | 19.9 | A | SP | 2025 | 40+ |
9 | Zack Thompson | 24.7 | MLB | SP | 2022 | 40+ |
10 | Alec Burleson | 23.6 | AAA | RF | 2024 | 40+ |
11 | Andre Pallante | 23.8 | MLB | MIRP | 2023 | 40+ |
12 | Michael McGreevy | 22.0 | AA | SP | 2025 | 40+ |
13 | Jonathan Mejia | 17.2 | R | SS | 2027 | 40+ |
14 | Juan Yepez | 24.4 | MLB | LF | 2022 | 40 |
15 | Austin Love | 23.4 | A+ | SP | 2025 | 40 |
16 | Ian Bedell | 22.8 | A+ | SP | 2023 | 40 |
17 | Leonardo Bernal | 18.4 | A | C | 2025 | 40 |
18 | Freddy Pacheco | 24.2 | AAA | SIRP | 2023 | 40 |
19 | Lizandro Espinoza | 19.6 | R | SS | 2025 | 40 |
20 | Malcom Nunez | 21.3 | AA | DH | 2024 | 40 |
21 | Joshua Baez | 19.0 | A | RF | 2026 | 40 |
22 | Packy Naughton | 26.2 | MLB | MIRP | 2022 | 40 |
23 | Inohan Paniagua | 22.4 | A | SP | 2024 | 40 |
24 | Jake Walsh | 26.9 | MLB | SIRP | 2022 | 35+ |
25 | Gustavo J. Rodriguez | 21.5 | A | SIRP | 2024 | 35+ |
26 | Won-Bin Cho | 18.9 | R | LF | 2027 | 35+ |
27 | Ryan Loutos | 23.4 | AA | SIRP | 2023 | 35+ |
28 | Cory Thompson | 27.8 | AA | SIRP | 2023 | 35+ |
29 | Moisés Gómez | 23.8 | AAA | RF | 2023 | 35+ |
30 | Chandler Redmond | 25.5 | AA | 1B | 2023 | 35+ |
31 | Nathanael Heredia | 21.8 | A+ | SIRP | 2024 | 35+ |
32 | Edwin Nunez | 20.7 | A | SIRP | 2025 | 35+ |
33 | Randel Clemente | 20.6 | R | SIRP | 2026 | 35+ |
34 | Alec Willis | 19.3 | R | SP | 2026 | 35+ |
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Depth Starters
Connor Thomas, LHP
Logan Gragg, RHP
Thomas Parsons, RHP
Thomas is a small, pitchability lefty with four offerings that live off his command, though some pitch metrics like his slider. Gragg, 23, is a 6-foot-5 kitchen sink righty who throws a ton of strikes with five vanilla pitches. He’s still in A-ball, but he could be a two-seam/cutter bulk reliever, if not a spot starter. Parsons, 26, is similar except he’s already at Triple-A.
Bench Role Ceilings
Conner Capel, OF
Nick Dunn, 2B
Osvaldo Tovalin, 3B
Delvin Pérez, SS
Jeremy Rivas, SS
Ryan Holgate, LF
Luken Baker, 1B
Capel is a well-rounded 25-year-old outfielder with above-average bat control and a weird swing. He’s a great upper-level injury replacement type. Dunn, 25, is like a free-swinging Brendan Donovan — same hair and everything. He has good feel for contact but not as good of an approach, and that’s enough to put him on the fringe rather than firmly in the big league mix. Tovalin, 22, is a physical, lefty-hitting infielder with a short swing and doubles power. He’s now at Peoria after clubbing Low-A. Pérez is a capable shortstop defender and a well-rounded defensive infielder who can’t really hit. Rivas, 19, is another light-hitting, glove-first type who is currently in A-ball. Holgate had a good college career at Arizona but has struggled to hit and dealt with injury in pro ball. Baker has stopped hitting after pelting 26 bombs last year, albeit as a 24-year-old in Double-A.
Deep Projection
Yordalin Pena, RF
Carlos Linarez, C
Pena, who signed in January, has arguably the most overt physical projection of that entire group and might come into big power. Linarez, 20, is an advanced defensive catcher with an above-average arm and good timing at the plate.
Relief Depth
Andre Granillo, RHP
Griffin Roberts, RHP
Johan Quezada, RHP
Granillo, a husky closer from UC Riverside, sits 93-95 mph with an above-average slider and 30-grade control. Roberts is rehabbing in the lower levels right now, sitting 90-92 and throwing his trademark breaking ball most of the time. He once looked like a slider monster reliever, but he needs to prove it at this point. Quezada has hopped around to a few orgs now and is still impossible to miss because he’s 6-foot-9 and throws 98 mph with little idea where it’s going.
System Overview
The Cardinals do not mess around. They push the prospects they think are good up the minor league ladder quickly, testing them and integrating them into the big league roster without worrying about service time optimization and manipulation. As such, we have a better idea of who’s a dude and who isn’t pretty quickly, which is part of why this system has little in the way of amorphous profiles or Schrödinger’s Prospects in a “maybe” area. The boom-or-bust high schoolers the Cardinals have found a way to get a little later in the draft have a mixed track record, but it feels like it’s worth it to have used a pick on Tre Fletcher (the only sign I saw of Fletcher on the complex in Jupiter was his sweet matte black car) if the process that landed him is the same one that leads you to Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn, who look like impact players.
I mention in some of the blurbs that St. Louis has a penchant for taking pitchers who have ugly deliveries, but who throw hard (and if not, the org tends to make them throw harder), often work with sink and tail more than rise, and command their breaking balls. That type of guy is all over their big league roster, with Dakota Hudson, Ryan Helsley, Jordan Hicks, and Pallante all applicable examples.
Internationally, St. Louis tends to have a balanced approach. They commit some money at around the same time other teams do, then hold a portion of their pool in reserve for later in the process, which they use to come to agreements with slightly older pitchers who have had a velocity spike (Edwin Nunez and Randel Clemente are examples here), or players who are hitting the market late for whatever reason (as was the case with Cho).
With Graceffo moving into the 50 FV tier, the Cardinals are now tied with several teams for the third-most Top 100-caliber prospects in a single system, with six; their cohort trails only the Guardians and Rays, who each have seven. It’s a top-heavy system with slightly below-average depth due more to graduations than anything else. Elehuris Montero is the only prospect on The Board who originally signed with St. Louis but is now a prospect for another team.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
I think, crazy as it might seem, the best thing for Herrera’s development right now is to be Yadi’s understudy for 2022. The bat is there, he’ll be somewhere around an average glove, but if he can pick Yadi’s brain on how to call a game, he’ll be a plus overall behind the dish.
That’s a good idea, but there’s a problem with that: Knizner is out of options, and the Cardinals would like to keep him to continue being the backup catcher (but for Herrera) next year.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just getting rid of him and picking up a generic backup. Knizner is baaaaaad.
The only real reason why any team would want Knizner is if they want to save money. And since he’s going to go through arbitration next year, it’s possible they won’t even save that much.
There is a non-zero chance that if he got DFA’d he’d pass through waivers. Not a high one, but since he can’t hit and can’t catch he isn’t really anyone someone would prioritize.
Why do people keep saying he can’t catch? Defense is where he’s actually pretty good.
Knizner’s errors, passed balls, and caught stealing percentage are all just fine, both this year and for his (limited) career. Baseball-Reference says his defense is passable, at the very least. So B-Ref supports your view, Lanidrac.
Fangraphs’ catcher metrics on the other hand rank him closer to a defensive disaster. I would simply average the two together and say he’s below average but not awful. Then again, I’m lazy and averaging them is easy. (Interesting trend: Knizner’s passed balls have improved from 1 every 10 games in the minors, to just 1 per 30 games in MLB. For context, Dodger uber-prospect Diego Cartaya has averaged an alarming 1 PB every 4 games, both this year and for his career.)
If you look at the components of his DRS and defensive ratings, he is average in most spots but he is a horrible framer. Since he debuted in 2019, he has put up the 6th worst framing value among catchers with a minimum of 500 innings.
That sounds bad, but it’s even worse than that, since he’s only had 906.2 innings. If you standardize it by innings, he leaps ahead of Salvador Perez, Pedro Severino, and Elias Diaz and into third place. The two guys ahead of him are Chance Sisco and Zack Collins. Collins is DH’ing half the time now, and Sisco has been DFA’d twice this year.
Unfortunately, not even roboumps are going to save him, because once they’re in place the bar for offense will be high enough that it’ll squeeze him in a different direction. Guys like Luis Torrens and Zack Collins and Eric Haase will be far more likely to make a roster (Sisco too, if he remembers how to hit). But there will be very few opportunities to play in the majors at catcher unless you’re in the wRC+ range of 80, or you’re an absolute defensive wizard.